Atlanta Braves Morning Chop: venturing into unfamiliar territory
The Atlanta Braves have found some rotation stability with their starting five, but some members of that group are in a place they’ve never been before.
One of the key elements of this Atlanta Braves surge during the Summer months has been the performance their starting pitching. The hope is that they can keep it going.
Of course, even as that’s being said, Brian Snitker removed Mike Foltynewicz after 5 innings on Tuesday night for no obvious reason… though it could be for the kind of reason that we’ll talk about here: extra rest.
UPDATE: Brian Snitker took him out for precautionary reasons as Folty looked spent and reported that he’d nearly passed out a couple of times.
As of Tuesday’s game here’s how the starting five have stacked up their innings this season:
- Julio Teheran: 157.1 innings (29 starts)
- Mike Soroka: 152.2 innings (25 starts)
- Max Fried: 142.1 IP (26)
- Mike Foltynewicz: 92 IP (16)*
- Dallas Keuchel: 84.2 (14)
Here’s the fine print:
- Folty adds 51.1 innings in AAA for totals of 143.1 IP over 26 starts
- Soroka adds 9.1 innings in AAA for totals of 151.2 IP over 27 starts
- Keuchel had some minor league innings, too, but we’re not terribly worried about him
That “worry” part comes with the innings that Soroka and Fried have thrown. These are the pitchers who haven’t been here before. The rest have some history with seasons around-or-beyond 200 innings.
It’s a topic that we’ve raised before, but now it’s here… and is honestly somewhat worrisome.
Mike Soroka is now exactly 1 inning under his professional maximum of 153.2 pitched innings from his Southern League (AA) year in 2017. Last season, shoulder conditioning issues held him to less than 60 innings.
That hasn’t recurred during this season, but every pitch he throws once the 2nd inning starts during his next outing is New Territory.
Max Fried is already exploring strange new innings. His previous high was 118.2 innings, and that was way back in 2013 when he was still the property of the Padres – before his Tommy John surgery.
Actually, that might not be fair… it’s tied with his 118.2 innings in 2017.
But it’s not just September we’re thinking about here.
Not Just Now… but later
So we’re in September now and there’s still a lot of competitive baseball remaining.
If all remains constant with the rotation schedule, here’s what we can expect:
- Fried:
- next start Thursday vs. Washington.
- 4 additional starts beyond that (PHL, WSH, SFG, NYM)
- Soroka:
- next start Sunday vs. Washington.
- 3 additional starts afterwards (WSH again, PHL, KC).
That schedule positions Soroka well to start Game 1 of an NLDS series, but that’s a key part of the next hurdle, isn’t it?
Fried is averaging 5.5 innings per start. Soroka is at 5.6 innings per.
Extrapolating these figures puts them at 170 and 174 innings, respectively… before the playoffs start.
Under the happy scenario where the Braves continue to the World Series, that’s probably another 4-6 starts apiece… and 20-to-30 more innings… putting both close to 200 for the year.
As a reminder, Fried is 25½; Soroka is barely 22.
To some extent, I’d feel more comfortable with Fried over-shooting his previous highs in innings, but he’s also the guy who already has a TJ surgery in his history. So yeah – keeping both players on the mound is a concern… especially as the post-season beckons.
Maybe this is being too much of a Worrywart, but maybe – just maybe – the Braves are going to try and use this extra bullpen depth to give these guys some shorter outings down the stretch.
Clearly this isn’t the time of year to see more injuries, so the team will certainly be monitoring everyone carefully.
But these key starters are probably the ones most at risk.
Something Medically New Coming?
Okay, after that topic above, maybe this isn’t the right topic to cover, but we’ll do it anyway.
A piece from yesterday afternoon in TheAthletic (subscription required for the details) is noteworthy for the fact that there might be a coming alternative to Tommy John surgery that’s starting to come into vogue.
This doesn’t involve am Atlanta Braves pitcher, but it’s about a current KC Royal – Jesse Hahn.
After attempts to have his ailing elbow heal without surgical intervention, the Royals had him check in with Dr. George Paletta.
Remember that name… it this works, his practice could be as famous as that of Dr. James Andrews.
Hahn already had one TJ procedure in his history… he thought he was staring at another one. Paletta had other ideas.
This is an alternative to a complete UCL (Ulnar collateral ligament) reconstruction. In it, if the ligament is still viable, it can be repaired and braced thanks to new technological advances in the field.
This new technique is current awkwardly called “primary repair with internal brace“… the latter part being the key element that’s making this fix something noteworthy.
Risks to this include the actual repair of the existing tissue and whether the nerves recover well. That latter complication impacted Hahn’s recovery.
Still, even with that setback, he made it all the way back… back to the major leagues on Tuesday, September 3rd. This is just under 13 months since his repair surgery.
- Had he undergone the full TJ procedure… 17-ish months.
- Had the nerve issue not been a factor… he might have been back in 7 or 8 months.
Next. The End of the Minor League Seasons. dark
Interesting stuff. But perhaps we should start calling this the ‘Jesse Hahn Procedure’. It has a better ring to it.